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It has been suggested that this article be merged with Coursing. (Discuss)

Hare coursing is the coursing of hares, that is to say the hunting of them with sight hounds. In formal hare coursing the objective is to test the dogs on their ability to turn the hare. Informal coursing is often conducted to kill, either for betting or for food.

In recent decades, controversy has developed around hare coursing with some viewing it as a cruel bloodsport, and others seeing it as a traditional activity that assists in the conservation of hares.

History of the two types of hare coursing

Formal coursing

Whether for sporting or hunting purposes, hare coursing was historically restricted to the nobility, with greyhounds and various other pure bred dogs being used, the ownership of which was forbidden among those of the lower social classes. Today hare coursing is practiced using greyhounds that are registered with a governing greyhound body (the National Coursing Club in Great Britain, the Irish Coursing Club in Ireland); the objective is to test and judge the athletic ability of the dogs rather than to kill the hare.

Informal coursing

The oldest form of hare coursing simply involved two dogs chasing a hare, the winner being the dog that caught the hare; this could be for pest control, for food, or for sport. In order to legally indulge in the practice, the peasantry developed various cross breeds under the generic term lurcher. Today such animals may be spepcifically bred for the purpose. Informal coursing is nearly always poaching, lacking the landowner's permission, and is often seen as a major problem by landowners and by the police.

Description of formal hare coursing

Hare coursing in Britain is open coursing, that is, it takes place in the open (as opposed to Irish coursing which takes place in an enclosure with an escape route). There are two forms of open coursing. In driven coursing (such as the Waterloo Cup), hares were "driven" by beaters towards the coursing field. As they enter the field, a person known as a slipper releases two dogs at the same time, in pursuit of the hare, which is given a head start (known as 'fair law'), usually between 80 and 100 yards. In walked-up coursing, a line of people walk through the countryside and a pair of greyhounds are released when a hare is disturbed. Under National Coursing Club rules, the dogs are awarded points on how many times they can turn the hare, and how closely they follow the hare's 'course'. Since the greyhounds are much bigger than the hare, and much less agile, they find it hard to follow the hare's sharp turns, giving the hare an important and often crucial advantage.

The contest between the greyhounds is judged from horseback.

Welfare issues in coursing

The Burns Inquiry, set up by the Government, concluded that "We are similarly satisfied that being pursued, caught and killed by dogs during coursing seriously compromises the welfare of the hare. It is clear, moreover, that, if the dog or dogs catch the hare, they do not always kill it quickly. There can also sometimes be a significant delay, in “driven” coursing, before the “picker up” reaches the hare and dispatches it (if it is not already dead). In the case of “walked up” coursing, the delay is likely to be even longer." (see paragraph 6.68 of report)

'The kill' in coursing

The rules of the National Coursing Club were changed shortly before 2003 so that a point was no longer awarded for a greyhound that killed a hare "through superior dash and speed." However, kills did take, although the numbers are hotly disputed. The Government's Burns Inquiry said that about 250 hares are killed each year in formal coursing. Much larger numbers of kills are believed to take place in informal coursing.

The National Coursing Club and the organisers of the Waterloo Cup each said that, on average, one in eight hares coursed come to harm and that kills are very rare. By contrast, RSPCA Inspectors who attended the event - the most important event in the coursing calendar before the passage of the Hunting Act 2004, estimated that one in five hares coursed are killed at the event.

Observers of hare coursing at the Waterloo Cup regularly reported a minority of people in the crowd cheering when hares were killed, although this attitude would be criticised by the organisers of the event.

Conservation/Pest control

Two contrasting arguments are made in favour of hare coursing. Some coursers claim that coursing assists conservation because it relies on landowners creating a habitat suitable for hares. Opponents say that the converse is true, namely that coursing takes place where hares live rather than hares living where coursing takes place. On the other hand, some landowners believe that high densities of hare are agricultural pests - a view also taken by the California Dept. of Agriculture .

Hares are the subject of a species action plan aiming to double spring numbers in Britain by 2010.

Legislation

The practice of hare coursing has long been controversial. Eric Heffer, MP for Liverpool Walton, was a major opponent of coursing and began his attempts to ban the practice in the late 1960s. Indeed, the House of Commons voted for Government Bills to ban hare coursing in 1969 and in 1975; neither law passed the House of Lords to become law. In 2002, the Scottish Parliament passed the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act which banned hare coursing in Scotland. In 2004 the British parliament passed the Hunting Act, which banned hare coursing as well as other forms of hunting with hounds. The Act came into effect on February 18, 2005, and hare coursing events have been suspended in England and Wales since that date.

Coursing in Ireland and in Northern Ireland

There has been no legislation to ban hare coursing in Ireland, although there is a campaign to this end by the Irish Council Against Blood Sports. Instead formal coursing is regulated through the mechanism of requiring coursing clubs to obtain Government licences to net hares. In Ireland the national meeting in Clonmel, Co.Tipperary and the Irish Cup at Limerick Racecourse, Greenmount, County Limerick are the most important events in the coursing calendar.

There are two formal coursing clubs in Northern Ireland, in Dungannon and Ballymena. However, no formal coursing has taken place in Northern Ireland since 2002, as UK Ministers have refused the coursing clubs permission to net hares for coursing. At the present time, hares are also protected from being coursed or hunted under a Special Order under the Game Preservation (NI) Act. The two Northern Ireland coursing clubs travel to Ireland to hold meetings in conjunction with coursing clubs there.

Comparison to coursing in Britain

There are several differences between coursing in Great Britain under National Coursing Club rules and coursing in Ireland under Irish Coursing Club rules.

• the British form is open coursing which takes place in open land. The Irish form is run in a secure enclosure over a set distance.
• under Irish Coursing Club rules it is compulsory that the dogs are muzzled.
• hares are not plentiful in all parts of Ireland, mainly due to modern agricultural practices, illegal hare killings and informal coursing. In order to run a coursing meeting, 70 or so hares have to be found for each event; they are generally caught by use of nets under the terms of a licence agreement between the Irish Coursing Club and the Irish Government. The hares are then transported in boxes to the coursing venue where they are trained to be coursed. After the coursing event, the hares are transported back to where they were netted and re-released into the wild. Because hares are generally caught and released in the area where the club hunts, it is unlikely that hares will be raced at more than one meeting per year. However, reports by Government wardens, published under freedom of information legislation state that hares have sometimes been coursed more than once at the same event.
• the British form of coursing is run on points while the Irish one is not. The latter is run on the basis of the first dog to turn the hare wins and this is denoted by either a red flag or a white flag (the collars of both dogs respectively).

Welfare arguments about coursing in Ireland

Organisations such as the Irish Council Against Bloodsports and the League Against Cruel Sports say that it is wrong to expose animals to the risk of injury or death for human entertainment. They point out that some hares are killed - some due to injuries caused by the muzzled dogs pounding the hares into the ground and some due to capture myopathy. For example, they cite reports of Government wildlife inspectors to say that 50 hares were killed in the 2001/02 coursing season. The report from the official Countryside ranger at the Wexford Coursing Club meeting in December 2003 confirms that forty hares died at the event. The report of the veterinary surgeon who examined the hares blames the "significant stress" of being "corralled and coursed." Opponents of coursing also refer to the (British) National Coursing Club evidence to the Burns Inquiry which said that muzzled coursing can cause more suffering than unmuzzled if the coursing officials are not able to reach injured hares quickly; they point to occasional video evidence that shows this happening.

Coursing suporters deny that hare coursing is cruel. They say that very few hares die and that hares that are injured, pregnant or ill are not allowed to run and are seen by a vet. They say that, where hares die, this is because of an error of judgement by the slipper. In particular, they deny the claim that 50 hares were killed in 2001/02. They say that the National Coursing Club statement should not be given weight because it was given in the context that the National Coursing Club wanted to keep the traditional (unmuzzled) form of coursing. They say that traditional coursing has many more fatalities than muzzled coursing. Supporters say that, as the aim is not to kill or harm the hare, coursing should not be given so much publicity and should not be considered as a . They further say that the wildlife rangers who are present at the coursing events say that the hares are well fed, well looked after and the coursing is run well with very few casualties.

Another issue that alarms both supporters and opponents of coursing is the trading of hares, which is illegal. A small minority carry out these activities; for example, there was a conviction for this in 2002 after the Dungannon Coursing Club had only been able to find nine hares to course, though all people involved are not necessarily involved in coursing clubs. Informal coursing and illegal hare killngs are also strongly opposed by both sets of supporters.

Public opinion (Northern Ireland)

There have not been any recent opinion surveys in the Irish Republic. However, the League Against Cruel Sports commissioned Millward Brown Ulster to do a survey of 1,000 Northern Ireland residents at the end of 2003. This found that at the claim that that 85% of rural people believed that hare coursing is cruel, that 73% believed it is immoral and that 70% wanted to see it brought to an end. Hare coursers argue that the public has not heard their side of the story.

Coursing in the United States

'Open field coursing' of jackrabbits takes place in a number of states in America. According to Animal Place, an American animal welfare group, such hare coursing is legal in California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah & Wyoming but illegal in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Vermont & Wisconsin.

This is incorrect information by Animal Place. Open field coursing is legal in all US states where jackrabbits exist. As per the Fish & Game Commissions of all states in question. The states listed as illegal, ban closed park coursing, as it occurs in Ireland. Closed park coursing was used in the US for training Greyhounds, for the race tracks. And was banned in the listed states after a report by Geraldo Rivera. Open field coursing remains legal in all states with a huntable population of jackrabbits. Washington state lists jackrabbits as a protected species, due to an unusally low population for a western state, and bans all forms of hunting them. But does not specifically ban open field coursing.

In early 2006, the TV channel ABC 7 showed film] of coursing, with sets of three greyhounds competing in the chase of a number of hares. Subsequently, California Assemblywoman Loni Hancock introduced a Bill to make it a crime for any person in California to engage in "field coursing" and a pro coursing campaign was also established.

In May 2006, the legislation died in the Calfornia appropriations committee, after coursing supporters had claimed that the bill would cost significantly more to implement than its supporters had acknowledged.

Alternatives

Some critics of hare coursing suggest that coursers could test their dogs through sports such as lure coursing.

See also

• Greyhound racing
• Master McGrath
• Countryside Alliance

External links

• ABC7 coverage of 'open field coursing' in California
• American Sighthound Field Association - engages in lure coursing
• Countryside Alliance
• Article on former chief officer of the League Against Cruel Sports Graham Sirl's changed views on coursing and other blood sports
• Evidence of the threat the ALF made to a Irish businessman and hare coursing supporters
• Gamekeeping
• Horse and Hound
• Hunting Saboteurs Ireland
• Information on the breeding of Greyhounds
• Irish Council Against Bloodsports
• Irish Greyhound Body
• League Against Cruel Sports
• National Coursing Club (Great Britain)
• Original British Coursing Rules by Duke of Norfolk
• Original form of hare coursing still practiced
• Sporting Press - Ireland's Leading Greyhound/Coursing Newspaper

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• Hunting
• Blood sports